scholarly journals X‐Rays in the Orion Nebula Cluster: Constraints on the Origins of Magnetic Activity in Pre–Main‐Sequence Stars

2003 ◽  
Vol 584 (2) ◽  
pp. 911-930 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric D. Feigelson ◽  
James A. Gaffney III ◽  
Gordon Garmire ◽  
Lynne A. Hillenbrand ◽  
Leisa Townsley
2004 ◽  
Vol 219 ◽  
pp. 211-222
Author(s):  
Eric D. Feigelson

I review here recent advances in our understanding of magnetic activity in pre-main sequence (PMS) protostars and T Tauri stars. Results are based on recent imaging, spectroscopic and temporal studies of nearby star forming regions from the Chandra X — ray Observatory and XMM — Newton, including a first look at an ultradeep Chandra exposure of the Orion Nebula Cluster.Pre-main sequence stars exhibit a high level of X-ray emission dominated by a bewildering variety of magnetic reconnection flares. Activity is linked to bulk stellar properties — Lbol, mass, surface area or volume — rather than rotation. This suggests that dynamo processes in deeply convective PMS stars may fundamentally differ from the tachocline dynamo operating in main sequence stars.X-rays and MeV particles from magnetic flares will affect the circumstellar environment in PMS systems, particularly the protoplanetary disk. X-ray emission may influence: disk ionization, turbulence and viscosity; Jovian planet formation and migration; the production of meteoritic isotopes and melting of meteoritic chondrules; the heating and chemistry of the disk. X-ray surveys are also effective in locating post-T Tauri stars for disk evolution studies.


1990 ◽  
Vol 137 ◽  
pp. 363-370
Author(s):  
Thierry Montmerle

X-rays turned out rather unexpectedly to be of fundamental importance in studying, and especially in discovering, pre-main sequence stars. The bulk of the data we now have comes from observations using the Einstein satellite, operating in the imaging mode between ~0.4 to ~4 keV (for reviews, see, e.g., Feigelson 1984, Feigelson, Giampapa, and Vrba 1990); because many of the detected sources turned out to suffer a relatively large absorption (Av up to several magnitudes, see below), EXOSAT, sensitive to softer X rays, unfortunately proved to be of little use.


2019 ◽  
Vol 628 ◽  
pp. A74 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. G. Guarcello ◽  
E. Flaccomio ◽  
G. Micela ◽  
C. Argiroffi ◽  
S. Sciortino ◽  
...  

Context. Pre-main sequence stars are variable sources. In diskless stars this variability is mainly due to the rotational modulation of dark photospheric spots and active regions, as in main sequence stars even if associated with a stronger magnetic activity. Aims. We aim at analyzing the simultaneous optical and X-ray variability in these stars to unveil how the activity in the photosphere is connected with that in the corona, to identify the dominant surface magnetic activity, and to correlate our results with stellar properties, such as rotation and mass. Methods. We analyzed the simultaneous optical and X-ray variability in stars without inner disks (e.g., class III objects and stars with transition disks) in NGC 2264 from observations obtained with Chandra/ACIS-I and CoRoT as part of the Coordinated Synoptic Investigation of NGC 2264. We searched for those stars whose optical and X-ray variability is correlated, anti-correlated, or not correlated by sampling their optical and X-ray light curves in suitable time intervals and studying the correlation between the flux observed in optical and in X-rays. We then studied how this classification is related with stellar properties. Results. Starting from a sample of 74 class III/transition disk (TD) stars observed with CoRoT and detected with Chandra with more than 60 counts, we selected 16 stars whose optical and X-ray variability is anti-correlated, 11 correlated, and 17 where there is no correlation. The remaining stars did not fall in any of these groups. We interpreted the anti-correlated optical and X-ray variability as typical of spot-dominated sources, due to the rotational modulation of photospheric spots spatially coincident to coronal active regions, and correlated variability typical of faculae-dominated sources, where the brightening due to faculae is dominant over the darkening due to spots. Conclusions. Stars with “anti-correlated” variability rotate slower and are less massive than those with “correlated” variability. Furthermore, cool stars in our sample have larger u − r variability than hot stars. This suggests that there is a connection between stellar rotation, mass, and the dominant surface magnetic activity, which may be related with the topology of the large-scale magnetic field. We thus discuss this scenario in the framework of the complex magnetic properties of weak-line T Tauri stars observed as part of recent projects.


2019 ◽  
Vol 628 ◽  
pp. A41 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Pizzocaro ◽  
B. Stelzer ◽  
E. Poretti ◽  
S. Raetz ◽  
G. Micela ◽  
...  

The relation between magnetic activity and rotation in late-type stars provides fundamental information on stellar dynamos and angular momentum evolution. Rotation-activity studies found in the literature suffer from inhomogeneity in the measurement of activity indexes and rotation periods. We overcome this limitation with a study of the X-ray emitting, late-type main-sequence stars observed by XMM-Newton and Kepler. We measured rotation periods from photometric variability in Kepler light curves. As activity indicators, we adopted the X-ray luminosity, the number frequency of white-light flares, the amplitude of the rotational photometric modulation, and the standard deviation in the Kepler light curves. The search for X-ray flares in the light curves provided by the EXTraS (Exploring the X-ray Transient and variable Sky) FP-7 project allows us to identify simultaneous X-ray and white-light flares. A careful selection of the X-ray sources in the Kepler field yields 102 main-sequence stars with spectral types from A to M. We find rotation periods for 74 X-ray emitting main-sequence stars, 20 of which do not have period reported in the previous literature. In the X-ray activity-rotation relation, we see evidence for the traditional distinction of a saturated and a correlated part, the latter presenting a continuous decrease in activity towards slower rotators. For the optical activity indicators the transition is abrupt and located at a period of ~10 d but it can be probed only marginally with this sample, which is biased towards fast rotators due to the X-ray selection. We observe seven bona-fide X-ray flares with evidence for a white-light counterpart in simultaneous Kepler data. We derive an X-ray flare frequency of ~0.15 d−1, consistent with the optical flare frequency obtained from the much longer Kepler time-series.


1980 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 296-297
Author(s):  
G. Belvedere ◽  
L. Paterno ◽  
M. Stix

AbstractWe extend to the lower main sequence stars the analysis of convection interacting with rotation in a compressible spherical shell, already applied to the solar case (Belvedere and Paterno, 1977; Belvedere et al. 1979a). We assume that the coupling constant ε between convection and rotation, does not depend on the spectral type. Therefore we take ε determined from the observed differential rotation of the Sun, and compute differential rotation and magnetic cycles for stars ranging from F5 to MO, namely for those stars which are supposed to possess surface convection zones (Belvedere et al. 1979b, c, d). The results show that the strength of differential rotation decreases from a maximum at F5 down to a minimum at G5 and then increases towards later spectral types. The computations of the magnetic cycles based on the αω-dynamo theory show that dynamo instability decreases from F5 to G5, and then increases towards the later spectral types reaching a maximum at MO. The period of the magnetic cycles increases from a few years at F5 to about 100 years at MO. Also the extension of the surface magnetic activity increases substantially towards the later spectral types. The results are discussed in the framework of Wilson’s (1978) observations.


2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (S282) ◽  
pp. 199-200
Author(s):  
Krisztián Vida ◽  
Katalin Oláh ◽  
Zsolt Kővári

AbstractV405 And is an ultrafast-rotating (Prot ≈ 0.46 days) eclipsing binary. The system consists of a primary star with radiative core and convective envelope, and a fully convective secondary. Theories have shown that stellar structure can depend on magnetic activity, i.e., magnetically active M-dwarfs should have larger radii. Earlier light curve modelling of V405 And indeed showed this behaviour: we found that the radius of the primary is significantly larger than the theoretically predicted value for inactive main sequence stars (the discrepancy is the largest of all known objects), while the secondary fits well to the mass-radius relation. By modelling our recently obtained light curves, which show significant changes of the spotted surface of the primary, we can find further proof for this phenomenon.


2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (S258) ◽  
pp. 161-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keivan G. Stassun ◽  
Leslie Hebb ◽  
Mercedes López-Morales ◽  
Andrej Prša

AbstractEclipsing binary stars provide highly accurate measurements of the fundamental physical properties of stars. They therefore serve as stringent tests of the predictions of evolutionary models upon which most stellar age determinations are based. Models generally perform very well in predicting coeval ages for eclipsing binaries with main-sequence components more massive than ≈1.2 M⊙; relative ages are good to ~5% or better in this mass regime. Low-mass main-sequence stars (M < 0.8 M⊙) reveal large discrepancies in the model predicted ages, primarily due to magnetic activity in the observed stars that appears to inhibit convection and likely causes the radii to be 10–20% larger than predicted. In mass-radius diagrams these stars thus appear 50–90% older or younger than they really are. Aside from these activity-related effects, low-mass pre–main-sequence stars at ages ~1 Myr can also show non-coevality of ~30% due to star formation effects, however these effects are largely erased after ~10 Myr.


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